No Sir, I Don’t Like It

If I'm completely and totally honest, my first reaction to Call of Duty: World at War was one of disappointment. After the success of COD: Modern Warfare, I just couldn't believe that the franchise had voluntarily gone back to a World War 2 setting.

Please don't get me wrong, it's an absolutely outstanding game if judged purely on its own merits. The single player campaign, while short, is a lot of fun and the multiplayer is great. The problem is that it doesn't matter how good a steak is if that's all you've had to eat for months on end…and that's what COD: World at War feels like.

Basically, the game itself is extremely good…it's just an extremely good game in a very tired and overdone genre. If this is your very first WW2 shooter, you'll probably think it's one of the best games you've ever played. If, however, you haven't been living under a rock for the past decade, you'll have fun, but in a 'been there, done that' kinda way.

However, there's one part of the multiplayer that
I really don't like.

Normally I'm all for anything that makes a game a deeper, more involved experience, and in many ways the RPG elements introduced to the multiplayer part of the game do just that. As you play you earn experience points just like you would in a normal RPG and those experience points unlock weapons and bonuses you can use in the game. You can earn anything from more powerful weapons to upgrades and add-ons that make you tougher, your weapons more accurate, etc, etc.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea in a multiplayer setting?

In a single player setting it would be awesome…but think of it this way. The longer you play this game, the more of an advantage you're going to have. Playing better also lets you earn these advantages more quickly. This is just flat out awesome when you're the guy who's been playing for a while, knows the maps inside out and has all the best weapons, gadgets and upgrades.

However, when you're the new player…this just plain sucks.

I played a ton of games where I'd open up on another player with a machine gun at close range, put six or seven rounds into him…only to have him shrug that off and kill me with a single shot from a rifle I won't get my hands on for at least another few day's worth of gameplay.

Long story short, when you start out on World at War multiplayer, it's little more than a grind. There is a 'newbie zone', but that becomes locked to you when you get above level 8…which is just a handful of matches. After that you get thrown to the dogs.

Basically, until you've invested some serious time into this game, you're playing against people who know the terrain better than you, have better weapons than you and can take more damage than you.

It's sad because this really is a very, very fun game and it just sucks that the games I'm playing online now feel like work so I can have some real fun later.